ukraine

On the rewards and challenges of being the face behind (or starring in) a viral meme: [VICE]

Rohan Silva, one of David Cameron’s former policy advisors, warns that London should see New York as “a cautionary tale.” He’s referring to both cities’ exorbitant living costs that could push out artists. According to Silva, artists are decamping en masse from New York to Los Angeles. Which is funny, because London is massively more expensive than New York and, as we mentioned last week, New York’s creative sector is thriving. This seems like Silva stirring the rivalry pot to generate publicity for his latest venture: coworking space in Los Angeles based out of the transported-and-rebuilt 2015 Serpentine Pavilion. [Dezeen]

The Smithsonian is defending its decision to display Bill Cosby’s art collection: “it’s not about the life and career of Bill Cosby. It’s about the artists.” Uh, okay… just don’t accept any potable gifts? [ABC News]

Post Office Arts Journal hosted a panel discussion Arts Criticism and The Arts Outpost “about the complications of criticality in non-capital arts communities” at Baltimore’s Publications and Multiples Fair. A recording of that conversation is available online. My (Michael) two cents? I can’t complain. [Post Office Arts Journal]

Here’s one way to improve police/public relations: Kiev is hiring hot cops. So many jokes to make related to Arrested Development. Apparently the sexy new recruits have been instructed to pose for selfies with civilians. And pose they have. It’s a far more successful PR move than certain American police forces’ attempts at social media. [Hyperallergic]

Battery Park City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage is hosting an exhibition about LGBT individuals in the Holocaust. One story in particular stands out: gay Dutch painter Willem Arondeus destroyed a Nazi records office with firebombs and disguise mastery. When executed, his last words were “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.” His accomplice, lesbian artist Frieda Belinfante, managed to escape to Switzerland by hiding in drag. [The Villager]

Anyone else obsessively reading the Grexit, now dubbed the Agreekment? What a fucking disaster. The exact agreement has not been published, but the document Germany proposed over the weekend outlined CRAZY conditions; in addition to accepting a new set of demands from its creditors, Greece would need to hand over some unidentified national assets (airports? ports? the Parthenon?) to a foreign agency, which would auction them off to the highest bidder. Anyway, that’s from the New Yorker. Also read: an interview with former Finance Minister for Greece, Yanis Varoufakis at New Statesmen and the argument that the Eurozone is now demolished (which it almost certainly is) at the Financial Times. And of course, there’s Fusion’s Felix Salmon, who asks whether the trending twitter hashtag, #thisisacoup is accurate. Short answer, yes. Shiver.

Speaking of Tracey Emin, the artist has leant her image to a T shirt designed by Vivian Westwood as part of a celebrity-led campaign to stop Shell from drilling in the Arctic. The “Save the Arctic” shirts are made by a sweatshop-free collective in Peru and are a fundraiser for Greenpeace’s anti-Arctic drilling campaign. The coalition has also put on an Andy Gotts photography exhibition in a Tube station beneath Shell’s London offices. [The Sunday Times]

The avant-garde composer Robert Ashley, who was probably best known for his television opera “Perfect Lives,” has died at age 83. [Pitchfork]

160 years later, the New York Times published corrections to its original piece on Solomon Northup, the man whose story inspired the film 12 Years a Slave. The Times misspelled Northup’s name. [The New York Times, via The Verge]

A sex tape allegedly featuring Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and RFK will not be sold at auction. Not this time. [Daily Mail]

The Guardian’s Art Critic Adrian Searle speculated over Twitter this weekend that Manifesta 10, which is slated to take place in St. Petersburg, will not take place due to Russia’s role in the civil unrest in the nearby Ukraine. Yuri Leiderman, an artist who participated in the first Manifesta and is a native of the Ukraine has written an appeal urging the international community to boycott the event and to spread his words. Leiderman’s appeal is now on e-flux founder Anton Vidokle’s Facebook page. So far, Manifesta has made no statement. Readers can harass them over Twitter. [Facebook]

The Cleveland Museum of Art has tagged unspecified millions, out of a $10 million donation, to community outreach as well as the purchase of Native American paintings. [Artforum, via the Cleveland Plain-Dealer]

Who’s up for three fair seasons! The Independent has announced that it’ll replicate its feeding frenzy in New York again in November, to coincide with the auctions. “We wanted to do something different,” fair founder Elizabeth Dee told Gallerist. Yeah, another fair in New York. That’s really different. [GalleristNY]

The Domino Sugar Factory will be turned into high rises as planned, but thanks to Bill de Blasio, those buildings will now include 700 units of affordable housing. That’s up from the originally promised 660, but short of the mayor’s original ask by approximately 20 units. [ANIMAL New York]

Georgia’s Kennesaw State University opened its new museum this weekend. Two days prior to the opening, museum staff were ordered to remove an installation by artist Ruth Stanford; it featured artifacts from the home of the late Georgia writer Cora May Harris. Opponents claim that Harris, who is known for writing in defense of racism, “did not align with the celebratory atmosphere of the museum’s opening.” [CBS Atlanta]

Sad times everywhere, y’all. At least New Yorkers get to pretend like it’s spring.

The nation’s oldest private museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and its college of art and design will be no more. The National Gallery of Art will assume the museum’s collection and George Washington University will take over the school. A deadline of April 7, 2014 has been set to work out the details. [The Washington Post]

Would you like to know how Kim Kardashian gets her face to look so angular? Facial contouring. Here’s a how-to on getting Kard’s tiger face. [The Hairpin]

New York state will no longer be able to punish juvenile and pregnant inmates with solitary confinement. This comes from an agreement stemming from an ACLU lawsuit challenging this (odd) practice. [Al Jazeera America]

EU foreign ministers are now in talks with Ukraine President Yanukovych. The conflict in Ukraine continues to escalate—a makeshift mortuary for protestors has been set up in the lobby of the Hotel Ukraine. [BBC]

A look at the Menil Drawing Institute, set to open in 2017. [Culture Monster]

Continuing our art world’s unfortunate fascination with celebrity art: James Franco defends Shia LaBeouf’s “art” in a New York Times op-ed. [Vulture]